Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was born to a poor family on February 12, 1809, in a one room cabin in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky. Lincoln was mostly self educated and rose to be one of the greatest politicians within the U.S. by leading the country through the American Civil War. Lincoln rose to the presidency in 1860 after working as a country lawyer, Illinois state legislator, and member of the House of Representatives.

While president, Lincoln was a profound opponent of slavery and promoted democracy. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and later passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish slavery. Lincoln also concentrated heavily on political and military operations and often exercised unprecedented war powers despite heavy political opposition.

Lincoln was dedicated to the principles of nationalism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address following a Union victory on November 19, 1863 which garnered him acclaim and later secured his re-election. Lincoln led during the Reconstruction following the Civil War and his efforts unified the once divided U.S, rendering him one of the most effective and greatest presidents within the U.S.

Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1965 by John Wilkes Booth but his legacy continues. Here are the Best Abraham Lincoln Quotes:

1. "A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have."

2. "A woman is the only only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me."

3. "All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother."

4. "All of my life I tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind."

5. "Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

6. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."

7. "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

8. "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

9. "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

10. "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."

11. "As our case is new, we must think and act anew."

12. "Avoid popularity if you would have peace."

13. "Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets."

14. "Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

15. "Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all."

16. "Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

17. "Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."

18. "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."

19. "Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties."

20. "Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."

21. "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem."

22. "Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old."

23. "Everyone likes a compliment."

24. "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

25. "God must love the common man, he made so many of them."

26. "He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help."

27. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

28. "He who molds the public sentiment...makes statues and decisions possible or impossible to make."

29. "Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible."

30. "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

31. "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

32. "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."

33. "I can make more generals, but horses cost money."

34. "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

35. "I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end...I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me."

36. "We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it."

37. "The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions."

38. "The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them."

39. "The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."

40. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him."

41. "There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."

42. "The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed."

43. "There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one."

44. "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."

46. "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty."

47. "These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

48. "The probability that we may fail in the struggle out not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

49. "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."

50. "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."